Entertainment

'Baseball Boyfriend' App Lets You 'Date' The Players

If you've ever been interested in participating in fantasy sports but also wanted to combine a teenage-like element of crushing on professional athlete, Baseball Boyfriend is just the app for you.

For $2.99 you can create your own "BBBF" (that's Baseball Boyfriend) through CBS Sports, then follow his stats or dump him when his team does poorly. Anyone who has a CBS Sports fantasy sports account can access Baseball Boyfriend.

The app has received a lot of online criticism since it launched about one week ago. Henry Schulman of the San Francisco Chronicle wrote an article titled, "A fantasy baseball game for girls who happen to live in the 1950s." Schulman said he first thought news of the app was a joke put out by the Onion. A post on NBC Sports said, "Women do not need to be treated like love-struck teenagers to be drawn in."

Here's the description from CBSSports.com: "Baseball Boyfriend is a single draftee, fantasy sports, mini game for those who love baseball. Pick your boyfriend for the season or a day. BBBFs earn you points daily. Player with the most points at the end wins."

With Baseball Boyfriend you can have one boyfriend per league and participate in up to three leageus. The number of boyfriends you go through per season is up to you; choose a new boyfriend each day or stick with one the entire season. You can choose from the "clean" design that just features players' photos, or the "a pirate" design so the players look more reminiscent of Captain Jack Sparrow. The original design also features red hearts around the players' pics — just like you'd draw in a notebook if you were 10 years old.

Baseball Boyfriend was created by husband and wife team Frank and Missy Panko. Frank told Mashable his wife Missy created Baseball Boyfriend and he developed the web app.

"The game itself started three or four years ago, jokingly between nine-to-12 women," Panko says. "Last season we turned it into a website so everyone could keep up with their favorite players through the season. It also gave us the opportunity to come up with the algorithms that level the playing field between pitchers and batters."

Panko says the initial goal with the first version of the app was simply to make tracking "baseball boyfriends" easier for his wife and her friends.

"We wanted something fun for us, we weren't trying to get rich or target a new market," he said. "Making it an app through CBS Sports simply made it possible for me to automate stats so we wouldn't have to plug them in by hand every day. At the same time, we didn't see the need to keep this all to ourselves. It's something we've enjoyed for years, we thought others might enjoy it as well. So we opened it up to everyone."

Panko does admit, though, they hope the success of this app will bring attention to their main project, aviewfrommyseat.com. That app that lets fans share photos from their seats at sports games and view sports venues before buying tickets.

The Wall Street Journalreported this month that CBS Sports opened its site to developers to create fantasy apps in an effort to tap into a lucrative market.

When the app launched the site went from 24 visitors to 10,000 in 24 hours, Panko says. At this time, he can't give out any specific numbers for downloads but said fans have been asking if the app will be available for other sports, too. Panko says if BBBF turns out to be a success this season, they'll likely release other versions.

"As far as I know, no players have commented on the app," he says. "I don't expect to ever hear from any of them, just know that they are admired in a myriad of ways."

The Baseball Boyfriend season officially starts on March 28th. You can earn points through October 3rd, notes the site.

The app is not yet available on iOS or Android.

Mashable followed up with Panko to ask what he thought about all the criticism surrounding the app. We also emailed CBS Sports to get its takes on the controversy. We are waiting for a response.

This app isn't the first time a sports news organization was linked to sexist behavior. Until just a few days ago, visitors to ESPN's website could complain about a female announcer by selecting, "commentator — dislike female commentators." Yes, this was actually an option on the site.

What do you think about Baseball Boyfriend? Is it just a fun way to add something new to the experience of watching America's pastime or do you think it's sexist? Tell us in the comments.

Mashable
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